Unit

So while I was on holiday it seems the elves at Uber have been busy little boys and girls. First let’s catch-up on the latest stable release, with the introduction of ChronoResume (resume anywhere), along with a huge host of AI updates.

Praise, complaints, thoughts and bug reports should be left in the official thread.

Hotfix Build 82369

Fix for largest cause of “Lost connection to server” issues. We will continue monitoring the issue and make more fixes where needed. Sorry for the issue, and thanks for your patience!

Release Build 82293

ChronoResume

Added Resume Anywhere

To use:

Load or start a game or replay

Open Chronocam

Rewind back to where you want to go. (You have to rewind at least 2 seconds)

Select the Play From Here (Beta) button and Yes when asked “Rewind history and restart battle?”

Wait for simulation to load​

Please note, replays prior to the introduction of ChronoResume do no support this feature.

Balance

AA missile tiny AOE radius

Naval firing arc adjustments

Units are now able to reclaim wreckage and trees while patrolling

Reclaim will not occur if metal storage is full

Fighter (Hummingbird)

Splash Damage set to 20

Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Full Damage Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Removed death weapon

Bomber (Bumblebee)

Removed death weapon

Interplanetary Fighter (Phoenix)

Splash Damage set to 25

Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Full Damage Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Removed death weapon

Missile Bomber (Hornet)

Removed death weapon

Commander

Anti-Air Splash Damage set to 25

Anti-Air Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Full Damage Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Missile Vehicle (Spinner)

Splash Damage set to 20

Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Full Damage Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Missile Turret (Galata)

Splash Damage set to 20

Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Full Damage Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Frigate (Narwhal)

Splash Damage set to 20

Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Full Damage Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Ammo Velocity decreased to 85.0 from 150.0

Destroyer (Orca)

Ammo Velocity decreased to 85.0 from 150.0

Battleship (Leviathan)

Ammo Velocity decreased to 110.0 from 150.0

Missile Ship (Stingray)

Splash Damage set to 25

Splash Radius increased to 0.75 from 0

Grenadier

Now prioritizes turrets and commanders over its normal targeting priorities

Firing arc and effects adjustments

Added a small explosion when ammo hits to better communicate its small amount of splash damage

Ammo Gravity Scalar increased to 6 from 3

Max Firing Velocity increased to 88 from 68

Min Firing Velocity increased to 85 from 65

Added a small explosion when ammo hits to better communicate its small amount of splash damage

Anti-Nuke

Accuracy improvement

Ammo Velocity increased to 1500.0 from 500.0

Unit Cannon

Fix Unit Cannon not decaying if you stop building it

Atrophy Rate set to 140

Atrophy Cool Down set to 15

Bot Factory

Placement Size changed to [40,55] from [30,55]

Area Build Separation decreased to 2 from 10

Vehicle Factory

Placement Size changed to [40,55] from [30,55]

Area Build Separation decreased to 2 from 10

Naval Factory

Placement Size changed to [40,50] from [20,50]

Area Build Separation decreased to 2 from 10

Air Factory

Placement Size changed to [40,40] from [30,30]

Area Build Separation decreased to 2 from 10

Advanced Bot Factory

Placement Size changed to [60,80] from [50,80]

Area Build Separation decreased to 2 from 7

Advanced Vehicle Factory

Placement Size changed to [60,80] from [50,80]

Area Build Separation decreased to 2 from 6

Advanced Naval Factory

Area Build Separation decreased to 5 from 10

Advanced Air Factory

Placement Size changed to [60,60] from [50,50]

Area Build Separation decreased to 2 from 7

AI

Added a new AI difficulty named ‘idle’. This AI will never take any action

Normal AI adjusted to make it more passive while making its expansion and base building behavior less erratic

AI will take into account allied forces when calculating planet wide threat

Added stuck detection for AI area build task

Adjusted stuck AI stuck detection sensitivity

Reduced AI factory buffer size

AI will send more units at once through a teleporter from planets it has full control of

AI will expand faster on planets it has full control of

Adjusted how the AI sees armies occupying a planet

AI will do a better job of balancing its economy

AI can now use bomb bots

AI can now build and use the Unit Cannon

AI should try to get all of its units cannons in sync

AI will once again send orbital radars to other planets

AI will send fabbers with no build task back to a rally point, out of harms way

AI should do a better job of not sending fabbers half way around the planet right after dropping them off at a planet

AI will now enqueue orders on the sim rather than issuing them directly

AI will build more AA vehicles if it is losing the air battle

AI will build a deep space radar earlier when on a planet by itself

AI will build an orbital launcher earlier when on a planet by itself

AI will be more likely to place a teleporter on a planet, in anticipation of needing it later

AI will keep a group of fighters and bombers at the ready when on a planet by itself

AI will build at least one air factory when on a planet by itself

Improved the AI’s handling of Gas Giants

Added “unable_to_expand_delay” as an AI personality setting. The AI will now accumulate time that it is unable to expand. Once they delay has been reached, it will set the unable to expand flag, allowing the AI to react accordingly

Minor balance to get the AI building the Delta V Engine and Control Module again

Fix for bug preventing the AI from using Delta V Engines

Fix for the PlanetHasUseableWeapon build condition not working as expected

The CanAffordBuildDemand build condition now supports build items with no spec to build. This will now just evaluate the condition using the fabber’s build arm drain

Added new AI build conditions:

CurrentEnergyEfficiency

CurrentMetalEfficiency

SpawnablePlanetCount

PlanetIsMainEcoBase

DistFromNearestEnemyThreat

PlanetHighestEnemyArmyThreat

FocusTargetThreatRatio

PlanetHighestEnemyArmyThreatRatio

PlanetIsGasGiant

Fix for AI not expanding on planets with little to no metal

Fix for typo in AI fabber air builds

Fixes for cases where the AI would seem to lose track of a fabber

Fix where the AI would get stuck on mixed terrain planets

AI platoon templates and unit map are now located in a separate folder in the AI content folder

The AI can now load multiple platoon template and unit map files

Added a cheaper path fixup function to nav. AI now makes use of the cheaper path fixup function

AI no longer ticks platoons that are in celestial transit

AI will not tick platoons in transit via the unit cannon

AI now can now create unit threat data on demand. This helps support units that are not included in unit_list.json

Removed unnecessary AI build item

Fix for some AI planet counting stuff

Updated default personality values

Build item renames

Fix the AllMetalSpotsFull build condition

Armory

Added two new Commanders

ToddFather

TheFlax

Save/Load

Changed the way local GW saves are named to avoid filename issues

Systems

Added two new large-scale prototype maps and put up a new iteration of one of the 1v1 prototypes in addition to 3 other prototype maps

Set the default water depth for planets to 100%. This only affects Galactic War and will only affect new wars

UI

Changing your primary color will no longer reset your secondary color

The lobby will remember the last AI difficulty you selected and will use that level by default

Removed Twitch integration as Twitch is no longer supporting it. Customers can still use a third party application, like OBS, to stream PA to Twitch

The system display widget will no longer show the missing image symbol when you rapidly change the system in the game lobby.

A part of the winter sale of 2013/14, this one has been a long time coming, but finally the Ajax commander has arrived. Anyone who purchased Planetary Annihilation prior to the 2nd January 2014 should now find the Ajax in their armory. If you don’t see it there but purchased Planetary Annihilation prior to this date then contact Uber support.

Following multiple PTE releases with the community helping to test every step of the way, we now have what may be the latest and most comprehensive patch for Planetary Annihilation yet.

Introducing the interplanetary Phoenix, the Barracuda, and the stealth submarine Kraken, it’s not lacking for new content. Add to that a comprehensive revising of the balance, some extensive AI improvements, and even new and sexier art, effects and sounds, and we’ve got ourselves a pretty awesome release. And with Pelicans moved to T1 brace yourself for some epic drops.

New Commanders

AceAI

Enzomatrix

The PTE has been updated to version 77272 with the T2 fighter makes its triumphant return as the interplanetary Phoenix, your new means for breaking those planets locked down by Bumblebees. This ability has also been unlocked for modders to play with. In addition there are a host of balance changes, a nice new weapon for the anchor, and the AI has become even smarter.

Audio

Undocumented Changes

Modding

“For the new advanced fighter I added a new field to the navigation block: “inter_planetary_type”. Valid values are: “none”, “gravwell”, and “system”.

This value works for all mobile air and orbital units. So, if you wanted an air or orbital transport that could transport between planets in the same gravwell, you would add “inter_planetary_type” : “gravwell” to the units navigation block.

Previous Release Notes

It’s that moment that so many of you have been waiting for. Subs, absent since alpha, have made their triumphant return to Planetary Annihilation! Released into the PTE, Uber want you to play with them, experiment, and break them. See what works and what doesn’t and provide feedback.

Design Vision for Subs

tvinita posted about his intention when adding subs into the naval balance:

SUBS! Okay, submarines. When designing the subs, I was trying to preserve what would make submarines strategically interesting within the current meta of the game while keeping them easy for the player to both understand and manage.

Elusiveness

So, whatever way subs behave, you want them to be a pain in the *** for your enemy to deal with. To accomplish this, there is not a submerge/surface state on the subs. Instead, submarines are always considered “submerged” as you can see above. The key here is that though the periscope is poking up out of the waves, submarines cannot actually be targeted by conventional weaponry because just look at how small a target that periscope is–how are you gonna’ hit that with a broadside cannon? This forms the crux of what makes submarines a tricky target without making it too confusing or frustrating for the opponent who has to deal with them. While submarines have their own recon layer, it’s not set up in any way to be different from surface/air vision. So you can see the submarine, both visually and on radar (no sonar needed), but unless you have torpedoes, you can’t shoot back at it.

Terror of the Seas

Submarines are the cheapest naval units aside from the piranha. They’re relatively agile compared to ships, and they pack a lot of anti-naval firepower into a conveniently cheap package that’s hard to hit. A swarm of submarines will be an unprepared navy’s worst nightmare, and though narwhals now have torpedo launchers to defend themselves–stolen from the orcas–metal for metal, a force submarines will win out against a force of narwhals every time, leaving your submarines free to pick apart the rest of your opponent’s navy while you cackle maniacally.

Not the end-all of Naval Control

Submarines cannot be targeted by conventional ballistic weaponry, however, as of right now artillery and bombs can target submarines just as they can target ships. This is to make sure that you can’t just maintain complete unchecked naval dominance by spamming submarines and your oppponent has no options to counter short of superweapons, and to further encourage unit diversity. If you want naval dominance, you’re going to want a balanced force that can take on all potential threats to naval, rather than just building a unit that can maintain naval superiority while ignoring any other possible threats completely.

With that in mind, let’s go into the design of the two new subs.

Tech 1 Submarine — The Barracuda

The Barracuda is cheaper and more maneuverable than the other ships, and it’s packed with torpedoes that fire much more rapidly than the narwhal’s. It also has lower Health than other ships. This allows it to function as your basic naval superiority unit, as most ships can’t even fire on it and it’s the most cost-effective optionf or maintaining control of the seas against ships. However, since it can only use torpedoes it can’t do anything against land-based coastal bases like the narwhal and orca, nor can it defend itself against bombers.

Tech 2 Stealth Submarine — The Kraken

The intent behind the Kraken is for it to serve as a late-game raider of sorts. Basically, we have a lot of long-ranged and slow ships in t2 naval, and the Kraken is sort of the reverse. It has torpedoes equivalent to the Barracuda, but its primary weapon is its hailfire missile array, which is a shorter range bunch of missile launchers that serve very high DPS out to nearby enemies. Also, here’s the kicker; the Kraken does not show up on radar. So if your enemy isn’t scouting properly, a small crack team of krakens can be chewing through their base before they even know what’s hit them.

Subs are likely to change a lot over the next few days as they’re coming in hot off the presses, so be sure to play the PTE and provide plenty of feedback so we can make sure subs are at the best state they can possibly be when they hit the live build!

Previous Release Notes

The moment has finally arrived, the Unit Cannon is here with all new art and ready to launch the sexiest planetary invasions yet. In addition the main menu has had an overhaul, a new player guide has been added and a host of balance changes made intended to make air more counterable by ground and bring naval play back. This is all part and parcel of build 76456.

The full list of changes is below. As ever, if you have problems with the new build make sure that you’ve tested with your mods disabled before reporting the issue to Uber.

Our new update is live! Starting today you can push entirely new invasion strategies against your foes with the Unit Cannon! This powerful unit will allow you to launch up to 12 units at a time anywhere across the galaxy, pushing the ability to break defensive setups or set up forward offensive bases!

We have also put in a lot of changes for our newer players, including a player guide to teach the basics of gameplay. This is accessible through the “Player Guide” on the Main Menu, or in game by hitting F1 or escape and selecting it. You will also see updated information and top ranked replays on the brand new main menu to help get you up to speed and competing for the top spots on the leaderboard!

For you system designers out there, we have added CSG palette to make placing CSG from any biome much easier than before. This gives you the tools to more easily make the amazing planets we have seen our players create.

Other changes you will see are the addition of customizable secondary colors to allow people to make their army feel more like their own, a lot of balance changes (see the list below), major adjustments to our ranked planet Berg, as well as the addition of 3 new ranked planets to the rotation, and bug fixes across the board!

We hope you enjoy the new changes as much as we do, and if you would like more detailed change report, take a look at the extensive list below.